Spring Pearl: The Last Flower

The Rats’ Nest

As Doggy and Spring Pearl begin their journey, the autumn air is so still that Spring Pearl can still smell the stink of the Pearl River that runs through the heart of Canton. Occasionally, the odors from the river had even overpowered Mother’s flowers. The rest of Canton sneers at their old neighborhood, calling it the “Rat’s Nest.” Since the river smells so bad, most people prefer to live away from its banks. But in the last few centuries, poor folk have taken over the open spaces. They’d thrown together shacks out of sticks, and no one stopped them from living there. Houses made of mud barely hold up during the monsoon rains. Spring Pearl’s little bamboo house was one of the few places that was actually legal. It was a palace compared to their neighbor’s homes.

They approach the stall of Auntie Wong. She thrusts a small bundle into Spring Pearl’s hand. It’s the eve of the Moon Festival, and Spring Pearl can smell the mooncakes inside the bundle. She wasn’t Spring Pearl’s real aunt, but she acted like one. Spring Pearl uses her free arm to hug Auntie. She thanks Auntie—she and Mother would have starved without Auntie Wong’s help.

More people start to come out of their shacks and stalls to say goodbye to Spring Pearl. Uncle Soo, the butcher, holds out a cylindrical shaped package. Spring Pearl recognizes the cylinder. It’s the backing that Father had used at one time for his paintings. Uncle Soo says he’s passing it back on to Spring Pearl. He looked at it happily for many years. Uncle Soo says since Spring Pearl had to sell everything to buy her mother’s medicine, the least that he can do is ensure that Spring Pearl gets to have one of her father’s paintings again.

Even though Spring Pearl knows her parents would have wanted her to leave the painting with Uncle Soo, she can’t seem to set it down. Close to tears, Spring Pearl only nods her head gratefully. Auntie’s son, Hammer, adds a European spittoon to the load in Spring Pearl’s arms. He works loading and unloading ships, and said he found it. Spring Pearl chuckles on the inside. Her father used to say that receiving a gift is more of an art than giving one. Spring Pearl thanks Hammer for the gift, even though she will most likely never use it as a spittoon.

Nearly everyone on the street turns out with a gift. Many are small items, but they’re all that the Rats can afford. Even the gamblers interrupt their game long enough to hand Spring Pearl several dice. Auntie Wong promises that no matter what, Spring Pearl will always have a place in the Rat’s Nest.

Somehow, Doggy manages to stow all of the gifts away in the baskets or tie them to the pole. He’s carrying quite a load by the time they leave the Rat’s Nest.

Spring Pearl wasn’t able to afford a proper funeral for Mother, and since there was no public wake, Spring Pearl didn’t know how many people cared about her or Father. Spring Pearl wishes her parents could have seen how much they were loved. Doggy observes that it wasn’t just them who were loved; Spring Pearl was, too. Spring Pearl insists that she did not do anything. She can’t paint like Father and she’s hopeless with a needle, unlike her mother.

Doggy says she must have other talents. Spring Pearl shakes her head. Although she can write a little, she has no talent for words. She usually has to copy the form letters in her book whenever someone wants to send mail. That wouldn’t have been good enough for Father’s scholarly friends, but it was just fine for fellow Rats in the nest. Spring Pearl also says that she helped Uncle Soo with his accounts. He’s hopeless when it comes to addition.

Doggy chuckles and says that all the Rats kept Spring Pearl busy. Spring Pearl responds that it was not a big deal. After all, they needed help. Doggy says that there are some folks who always run away from any mess, and there are some folks who always tidy up. Most likely, Spring Pearl tidying was enough to make them love her. Perhaps Doggy is right. Spring Pearl’s fellow Rats will miss her as well as her parents. Realizing this just as she’s leaving only makes her feel worse.

Doggy and Spring Pearl continue walking along the river, and soon pass the remains of the foreigners’ warehouses and offices. Nothing was made there, even though the buildings there were called factories. But the foreign merchants who bought and sold things for other people had called themselves “factors,” an old British word for “agents.” After the foreigners left, the buildings were looted and torched. But the smell of smoke still clings to the ruins.

Father liked to sketch the little garden next to the factories, and Spring Pearl used to tag along for the spectacle. The Chinese government hadn’t allowed foreigners to leave that area but curious Chinese had been drawn there to watch the foreigners’ strange antics. Mealtimes always drew the biggest crowds, because the foreigners used to put sugar in their tea, and they used to hack away like butchers at big slabs of meat on the dining table instead of cutting it in the kitchen sensibly.

But now that the foreigners have left since the war began, all of that is gone. The war between China and Britain had started again, and foreigners were forced out and their businesses destroyed. Spring Pearl stares at what had once been Mr. Fortescue’s establishment. She hopes he escaped. If there had been more foreigners like Mr. Fortescue, perhaps the opium trade would have ended. He hated that drug because it destroyed so many lives.

Mr. Fortescue was a British merchant who admired Father’s garden sketches. Their first attempts at a conversation had been through signs, but their communication improved as Mr. Fortescue learned some Chinese and Father and Spring Pearl learned a little English. Eventually, Mr. Fortescue commissioned Father to paint landscapes of the city so he could see what Canton looks like.

Everything had been going along fine until 1856, when an imperial Chinese official had seized some Chinese criminals who were serving on the crew of a British ship called the Arrow. The British were looking for an excuse to fight, so they declared war. Fifteen years earlier, the British had gone to war to force China to allow them to sell their drugs in China. After they won that war, they demanded all sorts of trading rights, as well as land for their own city, Hong Kong. Now it seems the British want even more, and they are, again, willing to use force.

Another group of people called the French have joined in as well. There are rumors that the French have their eye on seizing an area called Viet Nam from China’s control.

Because of all these troubles, China’s emperor placed a tough-minded official called Viceroy Yeh over the governors, including their province’s governor, Po. This viceroy refused the foreigners’ demands and instead placed a bounty on the head of every foreign soldier or sailor. The British ships retaliated by coming up the Pearl River, blasting a hole through the outer city wall, and sending troops to capture the viceroy himself. But despite the rumors the viceroy was enormously fat, he was nimble enough to escape the foreign kidnappers. Although the foreigners had taken the city, they had too few men to hold a half-million people captive for long.

The foreign ships finally retreated after the viceroy attacked them with floating torpedoes recently devised by a clever American mechanic. All of Canton celebrated the victory.

Doggy and Spring Pearl now turn their backs on the river to walk north. They enter the Western Suburbs, where many merchants and craftspeople live and work. Signs hang in front of shops, and you can tell what is sold in each shop from the shape of the sign. One street is candle makers, and another’s incense sticks. A third sells glue. Gold, silk, and every sort of raw stuff comes from all over China and the South Seas to be sold in little shops like these. From them flows jewelry, fans, and other objects the rest of the world desires.

Spring Pearl pauses at the space where Father always set up his small table and chair. His paper signs are still pasted to the wall. Spring Pearl would help him set up his stand and mix his ink for him. If she closes her eyes, she can almost see him still there, sitting proudly on his chair.

Doggy offers to go first through the marketplace, so he can clear the way. Spring Pearl draws her eyebrows together and says that she can trade elbows with the best of them, demonstrating quick jabs of her elbows, which she learned from years of shopping in the crowded market stalls. Doggy, laughing, says he wouldn’t show that technique to the Sungs if he was her. Doggy explains that although they do go shopping, it’s up to the servant to break the waves like the prow of a ship.

When Spring Pearl looks confused, Doggy explains slowly that if rich folk took care of themselves, servants would be out of a job. Even though Spring Pearl may think she’s just being helpful and taking care of herself, it might make some servants snicker. Some servants can be more stuck-up than their masters and mistresses. It’s a sort of reflected glory. He reminds her that if she acts like a servant, they’ll treat her like one.

Spring Pearl sighs and allows Doggy to go ahead of her. He nimbly weaves his way through the crowd, leaving a space for Spring Pearl to walk in peace. As Spring Pearl walks, the peanut peddler and vegetable seller start to push their goods in her face before recognizing who she is. They all grin at each other because they know how hard a bargain Spring Pearl can drive.

They cross a creek whose murky waters had been nicknamed the “Jade Stone Belt.” Before them rises the Old City wall that is eight meters wide and fifteen meters thick. With the walls that run around the New City, the walls run for nine and a half kilometers. In an open space, Chinese and Manchu soldiers practice slicing at invisible foreign invaders. Because there aren’t enough regular soldiers to guard the long walls, clans from all over the province had sent their warriors to defend Canton from the foreign invasion. Except for their special badges and weapons, the clan warriors dress and wear their hair like normal civilians.

The Manchus, a people from the north, conquered China 200 years ago and now rule the empire. They had taken over part of the Western Suburbs of the Old City. They make all men wear their hair in queues, like the tails of the horses the men rode to victory. Perhaps the Manchus ancestors would have been strong enough to keep out the British and French, but their descendants had grown fat and lazy from living off the Chinese. Their soldier’s uniforms are stained, and everyone can smell the stink of liquor on their breath.

Over the last 2,000 years, the houses and shops in this area had been squeezed together, forming a maze of narrow lanes and alleys. Over the rooftops, Spring Pearl can see the top stories of the eight-sided Flowery Pagoda that the poet Su Tung P’o had so admired. As they cross the street that runs straight and true to the great North Gate, they enter the Chinese section. Here, monasteries and government buildings rub shoulder-to-shoulder with schools and the homes of officials and scholars.

Doggy calls Spring Pearl over to a building with several sedan chairs. Some of them are covered on the sides and have curtain windows, while others are completely open. The sedan carriers scramble to their feet at Doggy’s hail. Spring Pearl says to Doggy that she can walk. Doggy shakes his head. The next lesson she must learn is to never walk when she can ride. Doggy inspects the chairs, and selects one with little curtains to screen the inside and bargains with the carriers. When they are done, they’re all grinning. Spring Pearl thinks it must have been some sort of game. Though both sides pretend outwardly to be unhappy, they are all secretly satisfied.

Doggy pulls aside the curtain to let Spring Pearl sit on the cushion. Because the cushion is thick and clean, it’s probably one of the better chairs. However, the fancy cushion hides the fact that some of the bamboo slots of the seat are broken. As the carriers lift the chair into the air, Spring Pearl feels herself sag so much that she clings to one side. Doggy walks in front of the first carrier, leading the way.

As precarious as the seat is, Spring Pearl enjoys the novelty of a ride. She can’t resist peeking out of the window. They pass a wealthy monastery where statues are freshly painted and gilded. On the other side, hidden by more long high walls, sit mansions of the ancient families who helped rule the empire for centuries. No windows break the surface, but through some openings of the gates, Spring Pearl can see beautiful courtyards and large houses. Although Master Sung is only a merchant, he had bought a scholarly degree that gave him the status of a gentleman, and Spring Pearl knows he lives in this area.

Finally, they come to the highest, longest wall of all. To anyone else it would have been the sign of a palace. Why then, does Spring Pearl feel like she’s entering a prison?